President Muhammadu Buhari Tuesday charged the National Assembly to fast-track the passage of the Special Crimes Court Bill.
Speaking at the national summit on ‘Diminishing Corruption in the Public Service’ organised by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) in collaboration with the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Buhari also urged the judiciary to embrace and support the creation of a Special Crimes Court.
According to him, “The fight against corruption is of course not only for government and anti-corruption agencies alone. All arms and tiers of government must develop and implement the anti-corruption measures.
“I invite the legislative and judicial arms of government to embrace and support the creation of Special Crimes Court that Nigerians have been agitating for to handle corruption cases,” he said.
Buhari added that the speedy passage of the Bill was a priority of his administration’s Economic Recovery & Growth Plan 2017-2020.
Also speaking on his recent directive to all agencies of government to enroll into the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), he directed ICPC to beam its searchlight on public institutions that are yet to comply.
Reacting to the president’s comment in an interview with BusinessDay, a former vice-president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Monday Ubani said the passage of the bill would aid the fight against corruption.
Ubani lamented that several corruption cases were pending in Court because they had to compete with civic cases.
“It is a good move. I support the passage of that bill. If you look at what is happening in the country, some corruption cases are pending for up to seven years without headway.
“Special court would speed up the process, I have always advocated for it,” Ubani said.
Jhon Bayesha, a lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) supported the passage of the bill, but said the existing judges in the country may not be enough.
“I support the creation of special court if that would speed up the corruption cases, because it is embarrassing for one case to be in court for four, five years, even more. But I would also say that the government needs to engage more judges; they are not enough,” Bayesha said.
Iniobong Iwok with agency
